Her shoulders lifted daintily, and fell. “I very seldom eat candy.”
“We don't want you to eat it. Just take it. Please.”
She reached in without looking and snared a chocolate cream and held it up in her fingers and looked at me. I said, “Okay. Put it back, please. That's all.
Thank you. Good day, Mrs. Ballin.”
She glanced around at us, said, “Dear me,” in a tone of mild and friendly astonishment, and went.
I bent to the table and marked an X on a comer of her paper, and the figure 6 beneath her name. Cramer growled, “Wolfe said three pieces.”
“Yeah. He said to use our judgment too. In my judgment, if that dame was mixed up in anything, even Nero Wolfe would never find it out. What did you think of her, Captain?”
Dixon made a noise something between a hartebeest and a three-toed sloth. The door opened and in came a tall slender woman in a tight-fitting long black coat and a silver fox that must have had giantism. She kept her lips tight and gazed at us with deepest concentrated eyes. I took her slips and gave one to Dixon.
“Now, Miss Claymore, please do what I ask, naturally, as you would under ordinary circumstances, without any hesitation or nervousness. Will you?”
She shrank back a little, but nodded. I extended the box.
“Take a piece of candy.”
“Oh!” she gasped. She goggled at the candy. “That's the box…” She shuddered, backed off, held her clenched fist against her mouth, and let out a fairly good shriek.
I said icily, “Thank you. Good day, madam. All right, officer.”
The dick touched her arm and turned her for the door. I observed, bending to mark her slip, “That scream was just shop talk. That's Beth Claymore, and she's as phony on the stage as she is off. Did you see her in The Price of Folly?”
Cramer said calmly, “It's a goddam joke.” Dixon made a noise. The door opened and another woman came in.
We went through with it, and it took nearly two hours. The employees were saved till the last. What with one thing and another, some of the customers took three pieces, some two or one, and a few none at all. When the first box began to show signs of wear I began with a fresh one from the reserve. Dixon made a few more noises, but confined himself mostly to making notations on his slips, and I went ahead with mine.
There were a few ructions, but nothing serious. Helen Frost came in pale and stayed pale, and wasn't having any candy. Thelma Mitchell glared at me and took three pieces of candied fruit, with her teeth clinched on her lower lip. Dudley
Frost said it was nonsense and started an argument with Cramer and had to be suggested out by the dick. Llewellyn said nothing and made three different selections. Helen's mother picked out a thin narrow chocolate, a Jordan almond, and a gum drop, and wiped her fingers delicately on her handkerchief after she put them back. One customer that interested me because I had heard a few things about him was a bird in a morning coat with the shoulders padded. He looked about forty but might have been a little older, and had a thin nose, slick hair, and dark eyes that never stopped moving. His slip said Perren Gebert. He hesitated a second about having refreshment, then smiled to show he didn't mind humoring us, and took at random.
The employees came last, and last of all was Boyden McNair himself. After I had finished with him, Inspector Cramer stood up.
“Thank you, Mr. McNair. You've done us a big favor. Well be out of here now in two minutes, and you can open up.”
“Did you…get anywhere?” McNair was wiping his face with his handkerchief. “I don't know what all this is going to do to my business. It's terrible.” He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled it out again. “I've got a headache. I'm going to the office and get some aspirin. I ought to go home, or go to a hospital. Did you…what kind of a trick was this?”
“This in here?” Cramer got out a cigar. “Oh, this was just psychology. I'll let you know later if we got anything out of it.”
“Yes. Now I've got to go out there and see those women…well, let me know.” He turned and went.
I left with Cramer, and Captain Dixon trailing behind. While we were leaving the establishment, with his men to gather up and straggling customers and the help around, he kept himself calm and dignified, but as soon as we were out on the sidewalk he turned loose on me and let me have it. I was surprised at how bitter he was, and then, as he went on getting warmer, I realized that he was just showing how high an opinion he had of Nero Wolfe. As soon as he gave me a chance
I told him:
“Nuts, Inspector. You thought Wolfe was a magician, and just because he told us to do this someone was going to flop on their knees and claw at your pants and pull an I-done-it. Have patience. I'll go home and tell Wolfe about it, and you talk 'em over with Captain Dixon-that is, if he can talk-”
Cramer grunted. “I should have had more sense. If that fat rhinoceros is kidding me, I'll make him eat his license and then he won't have any.”
I had climbed in the roadster. “He's not kidding you. Wait and see. Give him a chance.” I slipped in the gear and rolled away.
Little did I suspect what was waiting for me at West 35th Street. I got there about half past eleven, thinking that Wolfe would have been down from the plant rooms for half an hour and therefore I would catch him in good humor with his third bottle of beer, which was so much to the good, since I was not exactly the bearer of
